By Dennis Amor
Have
your say
A NSW council has refused to bow to pressure from local caravan parks
to ban overnight camping at a popular nearby rest area.
Glen Innes Severn Council has left holiday park operators fuming after
deciding to allow caravanners and other travellers to stay at Heritage
Park on the New England Highway, just a few kilometres out of town.
The move comes despite comments by local mayor Steve Toms, a member of the
Glen Innes Severn Tourist Association, that the free camp was robbing
caravan parks of business.
Caravan park owners had pleaded with the council to change the roadside
area adjacent to Beardy Waters to a daytime rest area only, claiming it
was unfair to have free facilities so close to the New England Tablelands
town.
Glen Rest Tourist Park's Ross Wilson believed overnight rest areas should
be banned within a 25km radius of towns, pointing out there were now eight
between Tenterfield and Armidale.
He claimed Heritage Park was becoming more popular than any local caravan
park.
"How do they expect us to compete against a stop like that?" he asked.
But an unrepentant council has given the green light to overnight stays,
saying it was policy to allow rest areas because they encouraged
travellers to slow down and spend more time in the area.
It believed that if the free 24-hour facility was abolished, it could
encourage caravanners and other tourists to travel through Glen Innes
without stopping, which would affect other local businesses.
It said a ban on overnight camping would not be in the best interests of
the Celtic Country town.
"Council does neither have the financial reserves readily available to
convert the reserve to day visitation, nor the staff resources to
continually enforce no camping on the site," it explained.
The council's Tourism Development and Marketing Plan points out
that the rest area, near the intersection of the New England and Gwydir
highways, serves the increasing caravan/touring traffic heading north from
Melbourne and south from South East Queensland.
"Provision of rest areas and ongoing beautification of entrances and
parklands provides opportunities to further capitalise on the economic
benefit tourism can stimulate," it adds.
